


Magic Mirrors Looking at People Who Belong to Us

by zarabithia



Category: Avengers (Comic), Marvel 616
Genre: Community: femme_fic, F/M, Fluff, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-04
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ways Wanda and Vision had to make adjustments as they got used to being parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic Mirrors Looking at People Who Belong to Us

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "My name is Wanda. Not Wanda Maximoff, though that's the name of those who raised me and my brother, Pietro. Not Wanda Frank, the name of those we thought our parents. Not Wanda Magnus, the name of our true father, Magneto. But Wanda! Period! For my husband has no last name." -- Page 25, Issue #1, The Vision and the Scarlet Witch limited series (Volume 2), 1985, by Steve Englehart

_Family faces are magic mirrors looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. -- Gail Lumet Buckley_

People meant well, Wanda was sure. William and Thomas were twins, after all. To most people, buying them identical clothing and toys would seem perfectly reasonable. Which is why, a mere two weeks after Billy and Tommy were born, the Wanda and Vision household was practically knee-deep in matching sets of _everything_. From matching onesies and pants suits to matching pacifiers to matching teddy bears.

"They'll certainly never have any reason to argue over toys," Mrs. Williams remarked, as she bounced Billy on one knee. Wanda watched the bouncing and tried to remind herself that Vision's mother had been through child-raising, and knew what she was doing.

It was still hard to watch Mrs. Williams bounce Billy quite so hard. Wanda's son was so young...he needed coddled a bit longer before the world expected him to be the tough, strong little man Wanda was sure he would go on to be someday.

Vision apparently saw the discomfort Wanda had, as he laid a reassuring hand on Wanda's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze as he answered his mother. "William and Thomas are so well behaved, it's hard to imagine them ever fighting over something as immaterial as toys, Mother."

Mrs. Williams laughed and gave Billy another firm bounce. "Give it time," she promised. "Little boys, no matter how well behaved they may be, will always find something to fight about. If you've eliminated the toy problem, that's one less thing you have to worry about."

Vision's mother might have been right, but Wanda was a twin herself. She knew well just how different the personalities of a twin could be. As much as she loved Pietro, the two of them could not be more different in personality or interests.

So while Wanda was sure that her friends and family members meant well, she couldn't try to force her children into the same mold. Each matching toy or clothing was divided in half, with one half going to either Billy or Tommy, and the other half donated to Leonia's local Goodwill.

~~~

As a superheroine, Wanda was used to not getting the exact amount of sleep that she may have needed. She was used to battles lasting longer than they should, and definitely used to grabbing sleep whenever it fit into her schedule.

From everything that she had heard, Wanda was certain that taking care of a baby wouldn't require any greater concession of sleep than her superhero life had.

For the first two months of Billy and Tommy's lives, that was almost true. The boys slept a lot, and were generally pretty happy. It took some degree of juggling priorities and appointments to get that right amount of sleep, but overall, things seemed to be going fine.

That delicate balance changed, however, the minute that Billy got sick. As was usually the case with twins, it wasn't just Billy who got sick, but Tommy contracted the same virus at the same time.

Billy was easy enough to handle, crying only when the pain of the cough got to be too much for his tiny throat to bear, or when Wanda or Vision attempted to set him down. Tommy, however, was an entirely different case, opting to scream loudly and obnoxiously, no matter what his parents did to try to make him feel better.

Wanda did feel slightly terrible for thinking that her oldest son was obnoxious. She decided, as she cradled the squalling infant close, that she would blame the lack of sleep.

Which, despite her attempts to the contrary, were beginning to take their toll.

"It's hard to believe," Vision noted with a nod towards Tommy, "That his throat is supposed to be sore."

As if understanding his father's words, Tommy took a deep, warbling sigh, closed his mouth long enough to look up at his mother, and promptly began screaming all the louder.

Wanda gave her husband a wry, if sleepy, grin. "Yes, it is," she admitted, giving the poor child a sympathetic back rub. It was all she could do for another hour, until it was time for the next dose of medicine.

She didn't mean for that yawn to escape, really.

"Curly top, if you need to get some sleep, I can watch our sons," Vision offered.

Wanda gave him a rare glare, brought on by the aforementioned lack of sleep more than anything else. "You're suggesting that _the Scarlet Witch_ give up?"

"Of course not," Vision assured her. "Merely offering my sleepy wife the opportunity to rest."

"I'll be fine," Wanda insisted, wiping her son's tears away from his face, which only made him double his crying efforts.

"Want to trade sons at least?"

It was tempting. Very tempting.

But she couldn't very well give up on her son, obnoxious though he might be. "Not yet," she answered.

~~~

Wanda liked to think that she had a pretty good grasp on her temper. Love her brother as she might, Pietro had temper enough for both of them.

But she was growing weary of repeating herself, particularly on a day that should have been devoted to a simple check-up.

To be fair, the check-up was over and Billy and Tommy had been given a clean bill of health. Still, Wanda was _trying_ to be polite to the nurse.

"It's just William and Thomas," she explained, with a measure less of patience than she had explained the first three times today. "Their father has no last name, and neither do they."

The nurse looked at her blankly, and then glanced down at the chart, pen twitching in her fingers. "They have to have _some_ sort of last name," the well-meaning woman explained.

"No," Wanda replied, pressing her lips tightly together. "They do not."

The nurse frowned and tapped her pen against the chart. Wanda contemplated hexing the pen into exploding. "I understand your husband's situation," she said, because there wasn't anyone in Leonia who didn't. "But couldn't your children have _your_ last name?"

"My husband's situation is that he has no last name!" Wanda said, finally losing the battle with her temper. "And neither does his _wife_ or his _children_."

She tucked the blankets around William and Thomas defiantly and left the doctor's office. From his spot in the stroller, Billy twisted his head up to look at his mother and whined quietly. It must have been odd for him, hearing her raise her voice, Wanda realized belatedly. It wasn't something she did a lot, outside of battle.

Tommy, perhaps predictably, remained content to suck on his pacifier, unaware that anything was wrong.

"It's okay, William," she told him gently. "Mommy didn't mean to get upset. But sometimes, you have to be willing to defend your family. You'll understand that more than I'd like, in the future." With the family they had, it was unavoidable.

~~~

It was, ostensibly, autumn. The red and gold leaves mingled against the green grass, making the lawn that now matched Wanda and Vision's costumes even more appropriate to their home.

Despite the season, enough summer heat lingered in the air that the indoors were as uncomfortable for the twins as they were for Wanda. Fans seemed only to make Tommy cranky, so Wanda ended up herding her boys out onto the recently added on deck and into the child swings that they both loved so much. A rare item, that both twins agreed on, Wanda thought with amusement, as she gave them both a gentle push.

The cool breeze did not seem to bother Tommy as much as the fans had, and he settled down to attack the pacifier, certain that the harder he tried to bite it, the more quickly his teeth would come in.

Billy rejected the pacifier, and promptly went to work pushing against the burgeoning teeth with his tongue, smiling happily when a cool gush of air brushed over his dark curls.

Wanda sat on a patio chair next to them, occasionally giving them a push, as she listened to Vision puttering away in the kitchen, working on yet another experiment in trying to cook lunch for his wife.

Moments like these were few and far between, but they were the moments Wanda treasured most, because on these days, she could just _watch_ her sons and revel in all their personality quirks. No feedings, or doctor visits, or diaper changes, or entertaining of any of their many adoring friends and family members. Nothing but peaceful time spent as a mother, dreaming of the men her sons would grow up to be.

~~~

"I do believe," Vision noted, as the clock reached 4:30 a.m., "That this is the first night both William and Thomas have slept entirely through the night."

Wanda glanced over at the clock and smiled. She was both partially relieved and yet... this was the first step in her children growing up. It seemed like only yesterday she and Vision had gotten the news...

"And yet, I can't sleep," Wanda mused. "Odd, isn't it?"

"Not really. You've grown used to their sleeping schedule," Vision said affectionately, turning to embrace his wife. "Which up to now has included one or both of them waking up every two hours. It will probably take you some time to get reacquainted with sleeping normal hours."

"Well," Wanda proposed, "I have a perfectly good idea about what we should do in the meantime."

"What's that, Curly Top?"

In reply, Wanda pressed closer to her husband, and pressed her lips to his. With a mind as sharp as Vision's, it didn't take long for him to catch the hint.

William and Thomas did not quite sleep through until daylight, but they did make it long enough to allow their parents some well needed recreation.


End file.
